


The First Lost Boy

by LaraWrites



Category: Peter Pan (1953), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Dark, F/M, Fairies, Neverland, Past Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 02:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7958359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaraWrites/pseuds/LaraWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendy wonders what happens to the lost boys who decide they want to grow up after all</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wendy I

**Author's Note:**

> A little Background into the origins ofPeter Pan and the Lost Boys, about where they come from and- more importantly- where they go

“What about all the old lost boys?” The Storyteller asks, her head cocked to the side as she considers her own question.

The fierce warriors stop, each of them frozen in their tracks. Slightly opens his mouth as if to answer before promptly closing it, the Twins look at their toes, Nibs looks at the Wendy-bird in horror at her question, Curly avoids the gaze of everyone else and Tootles turns to their leader to save them.

Peter wastes not a second on her question, flouncing past her as if she hadn’t opened her mouth. She spends another moment on the lost boys, before moving her gaze to follow Peter, who has begun to test his weight on a low hanging branch of a nearby tree. For a while she simply waits, having sussed by now that the master of the woods needs patience to be dealt with. However, when a full minute passes she can no longer maintain her silence; her fast dwindling patience coming to an end. Maternal or not, she is but a child herself, after all.

“Well, Peter?” She prompts, and behind her one of the Twins sneezes and another wipes his brother’s snot from his nose. John frowns at the interaction- the standards of the English gentry instilled into his young mind.  
“Well what?” Their fickle king retorts, and the mother scoffs.  
“You speak of so many lost boys, Peter, but I see only six here,”  
“Eight,” Michael corrects, adding himself and his brother and ignoring his sister’s (Mother’s?) frown of disapproval.

Peter pulls the branch suddenly and it snaps, it’s crack resounding across the forest and causing a ruckus from the explorers behind Wendy.  
“There _are_ no others,” He snaps petulantly, kicking off the ground and moving on to a higher branch.

Nothing more is said on the matter, but Wendy cannot let it go in her head. Despite Peter’s short and unsatisfactory reply, there is something in the reaction of the lost boys that sets her mind whirring in a way that disturbs her everyday routine; not that there is very much routine here. Swept away but the sudden decision to conduct an ancient spirit-summoning ceremony Wendy attempts to momentarily forget her quandaries, but to no avail.

She decides that Peter is not the right boy to ask.

Curly is.

Being as he is such a terrible chatterbox, and a gossip at that, the mother has noticed. Nibs and Slightly won’t speak a word that Pan hasn’t said himself first, the Twins would keep each other quiet and Tootles hasn’t uttered a word since his arrival in Neverland. Curly would be her ticket to gaining this knowledge that she had begun to crave. She thinks of how best to approach the matter once more and with strained effort she forces herself to wait the longest amount of time she can manage, so that the boy has forgotten her previous enquiry.

As it is, Peter hands her the opportunity when all go fishing. Curly is dreadfully ill, and as the mother Wendy is ordered- rather shortly- to stay behind and care for him. Had this not been such a perfect opportunity she would have objected the unfair treatment, but to her brother’s surprise she accepted her apparent imprisonment with good grace. She copies Nanna from her memories as she improvises a bed pan for the sick boy, before fixing him a cup of hot cocoa from a tin she finds set in the Wendy-house. She briefly wonders how it got there before dismissing her curiosity; such odd things happen in this strange land, she would truly go mad if she attempted to suss it all out.

She fixes Curly his drink, and one for herself, and sits next to him on the large armchair constructed of leaves and the like. She watches Curly drink, leaving her own untouched in her pale hands.  
“Feeling better?” She asks him and he nods happily, looking and feeling cosy; wrapped in blankets and coverlets.   
“Curly,” She braces him, watching him intently while he pays her little heed. “What happens to the lost boys that leave?”   
He drops his –thankfully empty- mug onto the floor with a resounding smash, eyes fixed on the opposite wall wide with horror. Luckily for Wendy, the lost boy is not smart enough to blow her off with a lie or avoid the question smoothly. Instead he coughs and splutters out “W-we’re not s’posed to talk ‘bout it,”  
Wendy moves hastily to clear away the mess on the floor, acting casual despite her burning curiosity which threatens to overcome her.  
“Why not?” She asks in her crisp Oxfordian accent, desperately trying to mask her enthusiasm on the topic.  
“P-peter doesn’t like it. It makes him angry,”  
“He doesn’t like Grown-ups, does he?”  
“N-no,”  
“He thinks growing up is a trap, doesn’t he?”  
“Y-yeah,”  
“But what if a lost boy decides he _wants_ to grow up?”

Poor Curly couldn’t see the trap she was leading him into, with her calm soothing voice and gossiping nature. She began to potter around the Wendy-house, absentmindedly humming and dusting.  
“Peter gets mad. Very mad,”  
“Does he send them away from Neverland?” Her fingers tremble as she reaches for a cloth; she was so close to uncovering everything. She polishes a silver kettle, watching Curly acutely in the reflection as he considers the wall and her question alike.  
“He banishes them,”  
“Banishes them back to England?”  
“Oh no,” Curly says, now as engrossed in the conversation as she was, all worries seemingly ebbed away as he snuggles down further in the sheets and steals a biscuit from a nearby tin. “From the camp,”  
“But only Peter can travel in and out of Neverland, right?”  
“That’s right,”  
“Then how do they get home?”  
“They-” Curly freezes once more, his eyes lifting from his cookie to his mother, who has halted her diaphanous movements and is now staring straight at him, hanging on his every word. With a sudden steely resolve he clamps his mouth shut on a mouthful of cookie and suddenly finds himself absorbed in the pattern on the blanket. He doesn’t deign to finish his sentence, but he doesn’t need to. The words hang clear in the air, as if they have already left his lips.

They _don’t_


	2. Hook I

Hook awakens suddenly, sitting bolt upright in his chair.

It’s becoming the norm for him to wake up suddenly, having fallen asleep whilst labouring over his maps. In fact, it’s no so common for him that he doesn’t even pause to allow himself to fully awaken before he’s once more pouring over the map laid out in front of him. He finds where he left off with ease and begins to chart a new course.

A new course; the words are so familiar to him it’s as though they are tattooed on his poor, overused brain. Every week a new course to sail, every month, every year. Time doesn’t seem to pass properly here in this strange land- days become nights with unusual speed and some nights seem to last no more than a heartbeat. James himself has given up with all forms of timekeeping, but if he ever condescends to peer into the box room beside his own quarters where his first mate and manservant sleeps he can see that Smee marks every day as it passes, from one sunrise to another.

Hook doesn’t have the patience, nor the hope.

Instead he agonises over course after wretched course, each as seemingly fruitless as the last. He is yet to reach his destination, no matter how many paths he takes, and it infuriates him.

Suddenly he finds himself void of all patience and- completely without regard for whatever time of day or night it is- he throws back his head and bellows; “ _Smee_ ”  
He counts twenty six seconds before the snivelling pirate comes flying through his door, all bows and ‘Yes Cap’n’.  
“Smee,” The Captain begins, his voice smooth and calm, “I have a thirst,”  
“Of course, Cap’n, of course you do! What shall I get you Cap’n? Wine? Rum? Uh… Milk?”

Had it not been for the man’s enthusiasm and utterly acquiescent nature Hook would have chosen any of the other men on his ship to wait on him. He detests Smee’s obsequious air and snivelling apologies. Moreover, the man is completely incapable of anything surpassing the intellectual level needed to tie one’s shoelaces. Nevertheless, Smee has been devoted to the Captain since the pair were mere boys, and despite all that Hook has lost or abandoned along the way- His own captain, his hand- he somehow can’t find the heart to rid himself of his servant.

“Rum, Smee. Tis too early for Wine,” He replies in passing, pulling out his penknife as he selects his bluntest pencil to sharpen. He rather enjoys pulling knifes out around Smee- he finds he gets a sadistic thrill from the man’s obvious fear.  
“It’s evening, Cap’n,” The servant utters, bowing slightly as he speaks. Despicable.  
“Is it?” Hook snaps with mock surprise.   
“Yessir, I’d make it to be six or seven, Cap’n,” Smee slowly grows in confidence, standing straighter as he relaxes more and more around his superior. The Captain smiles.  
“Why Smee, you can count now? I congratulate you! Tell me, can you count how long it will take you to _fetch me a flask of rum!?”_

The smaller pirate rushes off in a hurry, leaving a trail of terrified apologies behind him. James chuckles a little once he is alone, continuing to sharpen his pencil as he removes the Captain façade. Smee had always been easy to tease- to scare. He was so yellow-livered it was a wonder the man was able to handle the things he did. Hook knew though, that it was only because his Captain made him. Even as boys, Smee would only embark on an adventure if James was going.

Without further ado, Hook shook the distractions from his head and returned to his maps, studying the island he had already drawn down on the paper. Of course, most of the island itself he had left unexplored as the sea was his territory. In the North-East corner of his map lay Skull Rock- and the current location of the ship itself. _The Jolly Rodger_ found itself frequently staying at Skull Rock in between voyages; for the men to taste dry land, to resupply the ship with its needs for the next trip. James himself scarce left his own chambers, let alone the ship. The last time he had ventured onto land must have been a year ago- enticed out by Pan.

Mermaid Lagoon sat in the far East- a point that Hook made a point of avoiding. The mermaids were less than friendly, especially toward him. Some of the fickle creatures seemed to have a soft spot for Pan, and rather enjoyed messing with his course when he sailed by; once even pulling the poor _Rodger_ into the Lagoon itself where they each did their best to sink it while Hook and the crew worked tirelessly to leave.

In the South sat Cannibal Cove, a particular favourite of the Captains. Apart from being strewn with various treasures, Pan himself rarely visited that area of the island. Hook knew that Pan enjoyed the dangers of the unknown as much as the next young boy, but the ruffian had memories of Cannibal Cove that he wanted to forget. Hook knew these memories- and so much more.

The North West was home to the Indians camp. Hook was free to sail the seas, but he wouldn’t dare try to come ashore anywhere near those parts. He knew that the Indian Territory only ended when the sea began, and he wasn’t willing to take any risks.

Looking at his map, he knew that the next place he was yet to discover was the lands between Cannibal Cove and the Indian Camp. With a resigned sigh he began to plot out a new path, pausing only briefly when Smee brought him his drink to dismiss the wretch immediately. With his newly sharpened pencil he calculated the ships next route, and it was with renewed purpose and vigour that he burst onto the lower deck of his ship.

“Avast men!” He cried, loud enough to wake the few pirates who were sleeping. Mullins- who had been drifting off on a hammock he had secured to the deck- awoke abruptly and tumbled out of his hammock with a cry, landing on the hardwood floor.  
“Aye Cap’n?” Asked Starkey, raising his eyebrows in curiosity and twiddling his moustache.

James Hook grinned at his merry crew, his teeth shining in the reflection of the setting sun.  
“Weigh anchor and hoist  the sails; we have a new course,”


End file.
